This month I’ve decided to have a chat about tuning. (“Come on, Kate – we all know how to tune our ukes!”) Yes, I know you know how – but maybe it would be good to revisit both the why and the reasons you may not be doing it often enough.

When you first get an `ukulele, or if you change the strings, of course you need to constantly tune it – sometimes 4 or 5 times a day for the first few days – until the strings ‘settle in’ and basically remain at or very near to pitch. After we’ve been playing for a while, and our uke doesn’t seem to go out of tune much anymore, we might get into the habit of just opening our case and playing. Or maybe you tune before you go to a Strum or gig, thinking that will save time. Or – and I’ve been told this many times – ‘it’s close enough’.

And maybe it does sound fine to you – especially if you’re playing by yourself. After all, it’s not hard to tune the uke to itself so that it sounds all right. But unless you have perfect pitch – and not everyone does – it may be in tune to itself, but if you check it on a digital tuner, you may find that it’s not quite on – it’s a bit flat or sharp. And if you get a room full of ukes that are all just a little out, well . . . you get cacophony! That’s why a good digital tuner that clamps on your headstock is worth its weight in, well, ukulele strings, I guess! You can use tuners on your phone, but if anyone else is playing near you, it will pick up all surrounding sound. When you have one clamped to the headstock, it only picks up the vibrations from your instrument, so it’s as accurate as you can make it.

 So, what about having tuned it at home? Great. But there are many things that can cause the tuning on your uke to change. Temperature is a biggie. Going into a room that’s colder or warmer than where your uke has been, bumping the tuners as you take it out of the case – there are many factors that can result in a lip in pitch. It doesn’t take many out-of-tune ukes to upset the sound of a large group. And it’s heartbreaking if someone has practiced hard to perform at an open mic or gig but their uke is just not quite right. Best scenario: tune as or when you get on the stage. Or, if you start to play and hear that it’s out of tune, don’t try to soldier on; stop, tune, and start again. (If I had a quarter for every time I’ve had to do that !) It will just take your playing up a notch when you ensure that everything is pitch perfect!